“Neither of us were looking to be married, not at all,” Sheryl told HELLO! “I was 19 and he was 27, and we had different trajectories, but when you know when you know. For me there was no living without him. I couldn’t picture my life without him, and so it wasn’t even a question.”
It was 1975 when Alice and his band were rehearsing for a world tour that would be staged as a Broadway show, and they needed four classically trained dancers.
“I know nothing about rock and roll,” said Sheryl.
“I knew the Beatles, and that was about it. I was on the fast track to becoming a professional ballerina, and I was coming out of my third class on this day, and all these girls in the studio getting ready with eyelashes and makeup and their headbands matched their leg warmers.
“I said, ‘What’s happening?’ And they said, ‘Are you serious? Are you the only dancer in Los Angeles that doesn’t know that Alice Cooper is having an audition? He’s looking for two female dancers, highly trained, a United States tour, world tour, television special, a movie. This is an 18-month contract.’
“And my response was, ‘Alice Cooper? Who’s she?'”
Alice had nothing to do with the hiring process, and first met Sheryl during rehearsals, where he asked her to help him stretch.
“When he first walked in the room, let me tell you what he looked like,” said Sheryl.
“Tanner than tan, icy blue husky eyes, dark hair, had that Fred Astaire swagger, and I thought, ‘This might be the most attractive man I’ve ever seen.’ He had to adhere to choreography, and asked: ‘Should I stretch? Should I maybe warm up?’
“I managed to get him into a position where men don’t stretch very well – and I hurt him! First time I touched him… it was enough to make him jump up, put two fingers in my face, and he said, ‘You are dangerous. You stay away from me.’ That’s how we started!”
Alice added: “I was pretty much panic-stricken about the whole idea. There is something that just draws you [to someone]. You don’t know why you’re attracted, but you are, and the last thing on my mind was marriage. But I knew that she was going to be my wife.”
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